That had been a stressful couple of days. She and Cate had hired professional stylists to touch up the house—an oversized vase of peonies here, a bold throw cushion there—and an army of cleaners to polish it within an inch of its life. She had made the boys wear socks on their hands until the film crew arrived, just a little game to keep their sticky paws from smudging shiny surfaces.
But that had only been the ‘after’ shoot: now she was heading back to her own hellhole for the ‘before’.
So she was packing, Adrian was moping, and the nanny she’d called to help him with the boys hadn’t turned up yet.
‘I can just call the girls,’ Adrian said. ‘They’d come and help.’
‘On their own with you for three nights? No way. You’d let something slip.’
Seriously, sometimes Elle got sick of being the one who thought of everything.
She was nervous about going ‘home’, of course, but not as nervous as she would have been had she not transferred half of an agreed fee into her dad’s bank account. The other half would drop post-filming, when no one had said anything too humiliating on camera.
• • •
At first, her dad hadn’t liked the idea. ‘What the hell are you worried I’m going to say, Ellie?’ he wheezed over the phone. ‘I haven’t seen you for ten years. I just wanna look at you.’
‘That, Dad. Don’t say that.’
‘You mean—’
‘I mean, don’t act like you haven’t seen me for ten years. At least, not if the film crew is around. That’s one of the conditions.’
Not only had Elle not seen her father for a decade, but she’d also barely spoken to him. When Zoe had been around, she’d been forced into a couple of polite conversations—since her sister called the old bugger daily—but otherwise Elle had successfully avoided him. She just hadn’t seen the point in dredging all that stuff up.
Until now.
‘So what will they ask me?’ he asked. Elle heard the flick of the cigarette lighter, the sharp intake of breath. A cough.
‘Well, Dad.’ Elle paused for a moment, bracing herself to say two words she never said. ‘They will probably ask you about my mum.’
Silence except for the pull of breath on a smoke.
‘You know, what it was like being left with all the kids. How you managed.’
‘You’ve never even asked me that,’ her dad said.
‘Well, maybe this is the moment.’
‘I don’t need money to do that.’
‘The money’s not a payment for you, Dad. I just know it will be a bit of trouble for you on the day—and anyway, I was thinking you could give it to Bobby and Kai… to, you know, help them to be somewhere else.’
‘You want your brothers to be somewhere else.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘The thing about TV, Dad, is it’s confusing if there are too many characters. The crew just want me to take them around town and then visit you at home and have a chat there.’
‘Hmmmm. What about your sister?’
‘Zoe?’ Elle hadn’t factored her in. The last time she’d seen Zoe, on Instagram, she had been in Mildura, working for a river boat company. She was managing their marketing and social media pages, among other things. Elle liked to think she could take credit for that.
‘You got another sister?’
I wish, thought Elle. ‘I’ll talk to Zoe,’ was what she said.
‘Hmmmm.’ Just the smoking breath again.
There was one more thing.
‘Dad, where are you living now?’
‘At Pam’s. Out of town.’
‘Who’s Pam?’
‘Well, you’d know if you ever called me, wouldn’t you, Ellen?’
‘Dad. Please don’t say things like that either.’
‘She’s my girlfriend. Four years now. Good woman. You’d like her.’
Elle doubted it. ‘What’s… Pam’s house like?’
‘Nice enough. It does us. No kids at home these days, you know.’
Elle was going to head into town a day early, to scout out where the crew could shoot. It wouldn’t play well for The Stylish Mumma if her old dad was sleeping in squalor while she lived in a Brighton mansion.
‘Dad, I’ll be up on Tuesday. The crew will up on Thursday morning. We can do a lot of talking before they come, smooth all this out.’
‘We’ve got a spare room for you,’ he said. ‘Pam’ll just clear the dogs out.’
Elle almost laughed at the idea of her staying with her dad and his girlfriend in the dogs’ room. ‘I’ll stay at the motel, Dad. It’s fine.’
‘Hmmmmmm.’
• • •
Cate had never been to the country. She’d rarely left the western suburbs of Sydney before moving to Melbourne to work with Elle.
‘Glamorous, isn’t it?’ Elle said to her on the small plane. ‘Swan Hill’s not even the end of the line. We’ve got quite the drive after that.’
‘Are there snakes?’ Cate asked. Elle had noticed that she’d packed her sturdiest boots.
But when Elle stepped out of the airport, she couldn’t help grabbing Cate’s arm for support, overcome by a wave of intense familiarity. Ten years evaporated as the sky stretching ahead of her, the tight chill in the air and the smell—the smell of the ocean being thousands of kilometres away—all hit her at once.
They picked up a hire car, a hulking Toyota, and began the drive. Cate’s eyes were glued out the window to the nothingness that began at Swan Hill’s city limits. ‘What did you do out here? How did you end up out here? Why does anyone live out here?’
Elle hoped her silence told Cate that she wasn’t in the mood for questions.
The signpost for Thalwyn North popped up before any indication of life. Then a property in the centre of sprawling fields. A house. A little group of houses. A small school. Eventually, a main street. A row of shops with a pub at each end. An IGA. A motel.
‘Why are these things even here?’
‘Can you stop asking questions?’ Elle snapped. ‘You’re here to document and work. I’m going to set you up at the motel. And don’t talk to anyone, okay?’
Cate nodded and bit her lip.
‘Anyway,’ Elle added, a few minutes later, ‘there are farms out here. There’s sheep. And a lot of work comes from sheep. There’s more going on than you can see. Well, a little bit more.’
They pulled up at the front of the fake-Tudor Thalwyn Inn, and Elle climbed out. She thought she had dressed down for this trip, but at the airport she’d realised that even in jeans, a white Puffa jacket and Timberlands, she was going to stick out like a peacock in a chicken coop. It wouldn’t be long before word got around. Oh well, let them look, she thought, as she headed to reception and the back of the woman who ran the place.
Elle just kept thinking: I can’t fucking believe I’m here.
This motel had been in town since she could remember, but she’d never been inside. It was scrupulously clean but surely hadn’t been redecorated in thirty years. A fat ginger cat slept on the green floral lounge. A spinning rack of leaflets of the local ‘attractions’ stood near the window, all of them at least an hour’s drive away.
Please don’t recognise me, Mrs Gleason, Elle thought. She genuinely wished she was invisible, an unfamiliar sensation. Oh, the conversations she did not want to have. It was dawning on her that this visit would be more complicated than she’d imagined.
‘You must be what the film crew’s about.’ Mrs Gleason looked up from her thick paper ledger. ‘We’ve got a booking from some TV people on Thursday. Is that you?’
‘Sort of.’ Don’t look at me, don’t look at me.
‘Two rooms, three nights.’ Mrs Gleason went back to her book. And then… ‘Oh! You’re not Ellen Wright, are you?’
It wasn’t like Elle to avoid an uncomfortable situation. She reminded herself of that and swallowed and smiled. Own it, she told herself.
‘I used to be, Mrs Gleason, yes. Elle Campbell now.’
Mrs Gleason didn’t know Elle, big or small, from a bar of soap. Not really. Yes, Thalwyn was tiny, but the locals had always been grumpy at the Gleasons because they hired traveller labour to clean their toilets and make their beds—‘Rather than pay a local,’ Elle could hear her dad moaning. ‘Those kids will work for next to nothing.’
Those Gleasons are smart, little Elle used to think.
‘I’ve heard some things about you from my Deb,’ Mrs Gleason was saying now. ‘That you’re famous on the internet or something, but I didn’t know it was you with the television people. Gosh, Deb is going to be so excited. And—’ She stopped mid sentence, and her eyes went straight to Elle’s hand.
Of course, her engagement ring. She hadn’t even thought of it.
‘Would you look at that!’ Mrs Gleason took Elle’s hand, turning it left and right as if the hefty diamond solitaire was a rock of Liz Taylor proportions. ‘Would you just look at that.’ And then, ‘I’d be a bit careful around here, you know. People aren’t doing so well.’
Good point, Mrs Gleason.
The idea of this Sunday Evening piece was not for the film crew to capture a vain prodigal daughter, lording it over her country cousins. No, they were going to see a woman in touch with her roots—someone who ‘knew where she came from’. Ordinary Australians liked that. Elle made a mental note to take the ring off before filming.
‘There’s another one coming today, right, luv?’ Mrs Gleason headed back around the counter.
‘Yes—Cate, she’s in the car. We have two rooms.’ Elle started filling in her paperwork.
‘No, another one from the TV company, I mean. A producer, I think they said.’
‘Really?’ Elle tried to keep her voice flat, unalarmed. ‘Not here yet?’
‘No, but there’s another flight in this evening. I suppose she’s doing some research. A lot more goes into these TV shows than you think, doesn’t it?’
• • •
When Elle and Cate got up to their rooms, they looked around at the chintz bedspreads and the windows that didn’t open in abject horror.
Elle took charge. ‘You get all set up in here. If there’s no wi-fi, tether to your phone.’
Cate glanced dubiously at the few bars of reception.
‘Get onto today’s posts, prep some of those travelling pics for when it’s time,’ Elle said. ‘I’m going to see what sort of a state my dad’s in. Don’t leave the hotel. Seriously.’
Cate looked at the TV, probably wondering if it had Netflix. Elle didn’t tell her that the chances were slim to none. ‘But, dinner?’
‘I’ll be back by seven, we can eat at the pub. Unless some excellent sushi place has sprung up since I left…’
‘And what about the researcher?’
‘I’ll see what my dad’s heard.’ Elle was taking off her ring. ‘And if she gets here this evening, it’s a fair bet she’ll be having dinner in the pub, too.’
‘How will we know it’s her?’
‘Believe me, Cate, we’ll know it’s her.’
• • •
Elle drove down the wide main street out of town. Looking around, she wanted to be able to say that nothing had changed, but some things had. Three or four of the main-street shops were boarded up, empty. There was a moneylender next to the supermarket. There were some non-Anglo faces in the street, unheard of when Elle was growing up: they must be the ‘migrant farm workers’ she’d heard about on the news. She couldn’t imagine what kind of a welcome they got in Andy’s Butchers.
On the drive to Pam’s, Elle played ‘Where I used to live’. The town only had a few hundred houses, but she felt like she’d lived in half of them. There was no family pile to show the cameras, just weatherboard rentals with too many cars in their front yards.
Something was bothering Elle.
As she’d promised her dad, she had called her sister before she’d left the city. ‘Where are you, Zoe?’
‘I’m at home, Elle. And I’m fine, thanks for asking.’
Such a baby. ‘Where’s home?’
‘With Dad.’
Shit. ‘I thought you were in Mildura.’
‘I was. I am. I’m visiting.’
‘Oh.’ Well, that wasn’t too bad.
‘I saw about Adrian. I’m sorry. Is he okay?’
‘Yes, he’s… in treatment. It’s alright.’
‘What about the boys? I… miss them.’
‘They’re fine. They don’t really know what’s going on, so, you know…’
Awkward silence.
‘I know there’s something you want to ask me, Ellen. I spoke to Dad. And you wouldn’t be calling if…’
Elle spoke quickly. ‘Are you going to be there when I come with the film crew?’
‘Because you’d rather I wasn’t? Wouldn’t it be a nice story for you, if I told the Sunday show how you taught me everything I know?’
‘Zoe, it’s not you. It’s just confusing. It’s best to keep a simple narrative. That’s all.’
‘Narrative? I don’t think the narrative is going to be as simple as you think,’ Zoe said. Her voice was clouded, like she’d been crying.
‘What do you mean by that, Zo? Come on. I know we didn’t end things well after Freddie. But, you know, that was two years ago. Let’s just go back to being—’
‘Estranged?’
‘Whatever you want to call it.’ Elle was already sick of this conversation. This was why she didn’t call her family. ‘I’ve got to go. I just wanted to check about next week.’
‘Sure, whatever.’ Elle was about to hang up, but Zoe rushed to say, ‘Look, even if it’s for some bullshit TV show, I think it’s good you’re coming to see Dad.’
Elle was struck by a thought. ‘But why are you visiting Dad? Why would you go back there?’
‘Because I’m his daughter, Ellen. He brought us up, remember?’
That time, Elle really did hang up.
But it bothered her. And as she found Pam’s house—another weatherboard bungalow behind a rusting metal fence around a random quarter-acre space—she thought about it. Why hadn’t she asked Zoe about Pam? Or their brothers?
Two big utes and an old Ford were parked outside. Elle pulled the Toyota up behind them and looked in her rear-view mirror at herself before she got out. Nerves, she thought. What bullshit. She found herself wishing she had brought Adrian.
She climbed out of the giant car, and headed for the house. A woman came flying out of the red front door. She was fiftyish, round, dressed in a sparkly pink T-shirt that said ‘Bad Girls Go Everywhere’, tight pale jeans and uggs. She looked genuinely pleased to see Elle.
‘Ellen!’ she called. ‘Ellen! So wonderful to meet you.’
Elle looked at her dad’s girlfriend cautiously. Did she know Pam from somewhere? This was a small town, after all, and women had been circling Dad for years.
Pam seemed to read her mind. ‘We’ve never met, love. I’ve only been in town six years.’ She grabbed Elle in a hug and enveloped her in a cloud of body spray and cigarette smoke. ‘I hadn’t met any of you for years. And then you all come at once. Like buses!’
So Pam is cheerful, thought Elle. I suppose that’s a good thing—Dad can be such a miserable bastard. Elle smiled, said hello, and kept moving towards the house.
‘Ellen, Ellen.’ Pam tugged her arm. ‘Don’t go in there yet. I need to talk to you. Woman to woman.’
‘Look, I…’ Elle was surprised by the words that came out of her mouth to this woman she’d never met. ‘I just want to see my dad.’ It was true.
‘I know, of course you do, he’s so excited.’ Pam kept hold of Elle’s arm. Looked back to the house and then again at Elle. ‘But I need to prepare you.’
Elle’s stomach dropped. ‘For what?’
‘Your dad. He was just so
excited to see you, to have you here, he didn’t want to say anything that might… I don’t know.’
‘What? What?’ Elle shook off Pam’s pink-fingernailed hand.
‘He’s not well, love,’ Pam said. ‘He’s not well at all.’ Her hand went to the pocket of her tight jeans, fought their way in for a mangled tissue. ‘Your dad has cancer. The doctor is saying it’s a matter of months, maybe weeks.’
JUNE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MARK
Being the only man at mothers’ group had never bothered Mark.
In fact, back when Maggie was a baby, he’d quite liked it. At first, the mums had treated him as an oddity, rushing to help him with simple tasks he’d long ago mastered. When he asked the barista for a cup of hot water to warm a bottle, he was met with cries of, ‘You are so clever. My husband would never think of that.’ ‘I wish my Nick was so good with the baby.’ ‘Got to love a man who knows his way around a baby bottle!’
Being a male primary carer gave him rock-star status in a female world. ‘Your wife is a lucky woman,’ was the common refrain from complete strangers whenever he picked the kids up, dropped the kids off, or accomplished a complex task like a doctor’s visit or a swimming lesson.
Early on, Mark discovered that the bar set for fathers was disturbingly low.
‘If I manage to get through coffee without dropping Maggie on her head, I’m a hero,’ he’d reported back to Leisel that first week. ‘It’s incredible. I need to tell other men that this is where you go to get an instant status upgrade.’
‘Jesus, I wish it was like that for women,’ Leisel had said, taking a deep reunion sniff of Maggie’s head. ‘We can’t do anything right.’
That was obviously still the case, Mark thought as he sat at playgroup, scrolling through Leisel’s blog on his phone. It was the comments that depressed him. All these unhappy women. All this guilt, all this exhaustion, all this fear of failure.
The Mummy Bloggers Page 16